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“Thank you for the work that you do. This March will mark my third year back in the Catholic Church. By God's grace, he brought me back using Catholic Answers Live and EWTN. I will be forever grateful."

This time round, the old provocateur managed to get a rise out of folks. Almost every London paper ran at least one story on the "controversy." The Independent's Owen Jones fumed, "How dare you dress your bigotry up as atheism. You are now beyond an embarrassment." The best-selling author Caitlin Moran sneered, "It's time someone turned Richard Dawkins off and then on again. Something's gone weird." The Daily Telegraph's Tom Chivers beseeched him, "Please be quiet, Richard Dawkins, I'm begging."

One is tempted to ask, of course, whether any of these writers suddenly concerned about bigotry dressed up as atheism has read even a word of Dawkins’s before, but no matter. My aim here isn’t to cry “double standard!” We already know that seculars tend to give Christianity the short end of the stick. But why do they?

Signs of Contradiction

Perhaps it’s because Christianity offends secular liberal principles more than other religions. There could be something do this. Any religion whose founder claims to be the way, the truth, and the life (and which hasn’t subsequently dismissed what that claim implies) is going to be a poke in the eye to relativism and “diversity.” Traditional Christianity’s stubborn refusal to give ground on sexual morality doesn’t win it any friends in most newsrooms or faculty lounges, either. So you could understand if there was a preference in such places for less doctrinaire and demanding forms of faith. Certain Eastern religions (or the watered-down Western practice thereof) might fit the bill. Or Unitarianism, which cleverly guards itself against prejudice towards its beliefs by not having any.

But surely Islam doesn’t fit that description. Surely, in its doctrinal chauvinism, barely veiled misogyny, and long history of violence in God’s name it is more unpalatable to the secular West than even the grossest caricature of Catholicism?

Survival Instinct

Maybe that’s the key to the real answer, then. Maybe Western elites come to Islam’s defense so readily, even when to do so contradicts their own values, for no other reason than fear. After all, as Steyn notes, Muhammad is the most popular baby name in London and second-most popular in all the Realm. Growing quarters in many of Europe’s cities have become Muslim colonies, all bubbling with the potential for violence. Perhaps these writers who always gave a pass to Dawkins before simply realize that Christians won’t set their car on fire or chop off their head in broad daylight.

Well, that could be it. But instinct tells me otherwise. I don’t doubt that some politicians, whose jobs depend on maintaining public order, can recognize where there’s a need for kid-glove treatment of Islam. But I don’t think pundits and professors are that plugged-in to reality. And even if they don’t think Islam is fundamentally a religion of peace (many do), even if they don’t ascribe urban Muslim violence to poverty or racism or some other secular cause (many do), I still doubt they fear for their own safety enough to chuck all integrity to the wind. The perceived threat is just too distant.

Been There, Done That

So here’s my theory: the religious double standard in the secular West, expressed most starkly in differing treatments of Christianity and Islam, is not due to ideology or fear but to a kind of boredom. Fifty years of imbibing multiculturalism, relativism, religious indifferentism, and every other sort of –ism aimed at untethering our culture from its foundation, has left us in a posture of weary disdain for our Christian, European patrimony, and a reflexive preference for anything foreign to it.

From this posture it seems perfectly natural, when a Richard Dawkins criticizes the religion of our forefathers, to shrug (or to join in), but criticism of some alien thing sets off all our tolerance alarms.

There may be a silver lining, though: one that suggests a promising future for the mission of Catholic Answers and indeed all the faithful.

I recall a snippet that appeared in This Rock magazine some years ago, about a Catholic university that offered a course promising an insider’s look at the Church’s most secret teachings and practices. The course, called “Underground Catholicism,” was apparently a runaway hit with the undergrads—so much so that the professor could never bring himself to tell them that he was simply teaching from the Baltimore Catechism.

What’s the connection? Well, I don’t think that our collective accidie over Christianity and Western culture can last forever. It took nineteen centuries for us to get so bored with our heritage that we pretended to like something else better, but it may not be more than nineteen years before that whole project collapses under the weight of its own absurdity. When that happens, an entire generation that never knew what it was supposed to have rejected will go looking for it. What was old will be new again, and the vineyards of evangelization will be ripe for harvest.

Todd Aglialoro is the director of publishing for Catholic Answers Press. He studied theology at Franciscan University, the University of Fribourg, and the International Theological Institute. A New York native, Todd now lives in the San Diego area with his wife, seven children, and zero dogs.

Comments by Catholic.com Members

#1 Bill Monteith - Broken Arrow, Oklahoma

I believe in Mr. Dawkins mind, that his statement on Muslims and the Nobel Peace Prize is as much of a zinger let's say, as when he encourages the faithful at the reason rally last year to mock and ridicule Catholics who believe in transubstantiation. I wonder if he has plans in the future to hold the next reason rally in Mecca, or perhaps Teheran. Very gutsy, Mr. Dawkins.

September 5, 2013 at 9:51 am PST

#2 aziz aziz - chittagong, Chittagong

****

September 6, 2013 at 3:00 am PST

#3 Kadie Johnson - Port Antonio, Portland Parish

I have noticed this phenomenon for quite a while. I remember talking to my friend who is a lawyer (non-Catholic) about other religions. He was in strong defence of the Muslims and buddhists for their peacefulness. He scoffed at the immense effect that Christianity (Catholics) has had on the World (and in particular the west) while giving thumbs up to other religions simply on the basis that they are not Catholic. (Yes Nick, a yuh mi a chat)